


Forest

by ebbj9891



Series: In Quest Of Something [64]
Category: Queer as Folk (US)
Genre: F/F, Family Fluff, Gen, M/M, Monologue, Other, Post-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-01
Updated: 2014-06-01
Packaged: 2018-02-03 00:49:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,470
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1725089
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ebbj9891/pseuds/ebbj9891
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For a school assignment, Gus has to deliver a speech about love. This is his monologue about the love he's grown up with in his family.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Forest

**Author's Note:**

> I've never written anything like this before - I was a bit nervous about writing Gus' POV (especially an older Gus) and approaching a monologue format of this kind. Nevertheless, the idea popped up tonight and wouldn't leave me alone. So here goes... something.

Good morning everyone.

Um, today I'm going to talk about love. That was the topic on the list that caught my eye when Mr. Bradbury gave us this assignment. I don't know why it was on the list... I mean, who wants to hear fifteen year olds talk about love? I'm not sure I even have anything worth saying. But I guess it was a better choice than 'what inspires me' or reflecting on something topical. I don't really watch much of the news, after all. And 'what inspires me'... well, that could take me a year to write. So 'love' it is. Here goes. I'll try to keep my speech free of references to John Green or  _Twilight._ No offense to anyone here who wants to take that approach, I just had a different idea of where I might go with it.

Uh, so... wow. Um, Mr. B, I honestly don't know how you do this every day. It's kind of weird standing in front of everyone and having you all stare at me. When I told my dad about my speech today - he's in advertising so he has to give presentations a lot - he told me to 'fake it until I make it'. I think he meant to swagger on in here with a tonne of bravado. I  _don't_ think he meant for me to admit how nervous I am. Probably not a great start. Although... okay, I'm seeing some people smiling and nodding. You guys are nervous too? At least you didn't have to go first! Also, you're my new best friends now. Come see me at lunch and I'll treat you all to a candy bar or something. Okay. Um, I'm going to get started. No time like the present, right?

So... love. When I first chose this topic, I thought I was doomed. I've never been in love. I'm fifteen. What do I know about love? So my first instinct was to 'draw inspiration' from elsewhere, which I guess is a very flowery way of describing plagiarism. But don't worry, Mr. B., I didn't just go online and copy down a bunch of quotes from rom coms or anything. I started by phoning a friend. A few, actually. This is because I have no shortage of people in my life who pride themselves on being older and wiser. And I realised that  _that_ was a great way to approach this topic, because my family... well, a: they're totally and completely loved up, and b: they're pretty different to other families, so I thought it would keep you guys interested. I hope. 

Let's start with a quick summary. I live with my moms and my sister, J.R. I know a few people at our school have two moms, a few have two dads, but I don't know anyone else here who has two moms and two dads. Also, J.R. has two dads as well, but they're different to mine. We also technically have different grandmothers if you look at things biologically, but biology is kind of irrelevant in our family. Deb and Jen aren't related to me but they're my grandmothers all the same. So, yeah... big family, kind of a weird family. We have more of a family forest than a family tree... but it's a great family, all things considered. And Deb was the first person I called when I started planning this speech, so let me tell you what she had to say.

When I called Deb, I asked her what love means to her. Uh, she kind of went on for a  _while..._ Deb tends to do that. But what she said first of all really struck me. She said, "Gussy,"... don't any of you dare call me that, by the way! Anyway, she said, "Gussy, love is what keeps us going." And that meant a lot to me because Deb is always someone who keeps on going. She is always moving, always on the go, always pushing forward. And talking a mile a minute, too. Deb has a really big heart and she loves a lot. Not only does it keep her going but it keeps all the rest of us going, too. If our family is a forest, she's all of our roots. Deb is awesome.

But Deb is also kind of overwhelming... I say that with love, but my phone call to her lasted two hours and it kinda stressed me out! Information overload, you know? So for a change of pace, I called my Aunty Daph and asked her what love means to her. I knew I could trust Aunty Daph to get to the point a bit quicker, and she did. Aunty Daph told me that love means a lot of different things to different people, but to her it meant three things: always believing in the people you love, keeping them close to your heart, and never giving up, no matter what. I really liked that. I think those three things are really important.

But the assignment for today wasn't to tell you what my Aunty Daph and Nanna Deb think about love. It was to tell you what my thoughts are. Scary, right? Hah. Scary at first because I had no idea what to say, but then I started thinking about it and I had too many things to say! If my family is a forest, then love is the air and the soil and the sun and the rain. It's everywhere. It surrounds us. It feeds us. It grows us. It helps us survive. It lets us thrive. I realised that if I had to tell you about all the love I've ever known in my family, we'd be here until graduation, and nobody wants that. We all have places to be, after all! So to follow in Aunty Daph's footsteps, I'll keep things nice and simple. I want to tell you about the two really important examples in my life - my moms and my dads.

My moms have been together for about a squillion years. See, that's how long the phone call with Deb took... I had no time left for proper fact-checking! Ha. Um, but yeah, 'a squillion' is accurate enough when it comes to my moms. You can tell just by looking at them. Don't get me wrong; they're still pretty young, but they act like an old married couple. Everything between them - every time they talk or touch - you can see it's steeped in history. If you cut down their tree, you'd lose count of all the rings inside the trunk. The thing is, you wouldn't be able to cut them down. You know how you hear about love lasting an eternity? That's them. I see it when they talk to each other, when they hold hands, when they fall asleep on the couch together. I see it in the way they look at each other. Most of all, I see it in the way they are with us - me and my sister. And sure, like all moms they can be strict and naggy and really annoying, but me and J.R. always know how much they love us. They're good moms to us. They're good wives to each other. Like all trees and like all couples, I guess, they have their bad parts - some twisted roots and some gnarly branches. But that doesn't change the fact that their tree is strong, it's old-growth, and it's a great place to come home to nest.

At this point I would like to remind you all that one of my moms is a bloodthirsty lawyer and will sue your butt off if you make fun of me for how cheesy this speech is becoming. It's probably about to become cheesier. But hey, the topic was 'love'... I figure, go cheesy or go home. And since Mr. B isn't going to let me go home in the middle of the day... be prepared for a cheese-fest, everyone. You might want to duck and take cover. As you can see, I'm flipping through my palm cards right now and the words 'cheese avalanche' come to mind. Hmm.

Um, so, my dads. Just to complicate my complicated family even more, my dads don't live here in Toronto. They live in New York. I visit them as much as possible and they come to visit me here a lot too. My dads... well, where to even begin? My dads are not an old-growth tree. They don't act like an old married couple. They are married, but that seems to mean something totally different to them than it does to other couples. If my moms are an old-growth tree, I think my dads are like those trees that start off separate and then wind around and around each other until they're two existing as one. Inosculation, they call it. There's a lot of reasons I think of them like that, but the best example I can give you is last Christmas. 

Last Christmas, Dad and Jus were literally inosculated. They spent almost the entire holiday under the mistletoe, I kid you not. At one point they got banned from the mistletoe, because everyone said enough was enough, but then Dad just said, "Mistletoe is a state of mind!" And Justin laughed and Dad laughed and everyone else was about ready to quarantine them or something, but they went right on with all their smooching without a care in the world. Gross, right? I mean, I was right there. At one point someone mentioned this - I think it was Uncle Em. He said, "Your son is right there and you're traumatising him!" It was sweet of Uncle Em to say so, but for some reason I took  _their_ side. Without even thinking about it, really, I found myself saying, "It's nice that they're still so in love." And you know what? It really is. I don't necessarily need to see them sucking face, but I'm glad they're still so madly in love with each other. Everyone else in the family is old-growth or approaching that stage, where you know the love is there but you have to be real close or even squint to see it. It looks like the love you see on old TV shows and movies. My dads aren't like that. With Dad and Justin, you always know, no matter how far away you might be. Their love is so obvious. It's just like inosculated trees, where you seem them wound around each other, interwoven and indivisible.

But it's not just the obvious stuff. It's all these little things that I've grown up seeing them share. It's the way Dad looks at Jus, with love emblazoned all over his face. Sometimes Jus catches Dad looking at him like that, and then he smiles so big and so bright it's almost blinding. It's how they make each other laugh. It's how happy they are in each other's company. It's the way they hold hands - you watch them and you see them rubbing their thumbs over each other's wrists, and every so often you see their knuckles go white because they're squeezing so hard. Sometimes you walk in the room and they're talking, with their heads bowed together, all close and quiet. You get this feeling like you're on the perimeter of some secret world. You also get this sense like... like you're seeing their truest selves. I've seen them out with friends and at work and in all sorts of different places, but it's when they're together that they _really_ look like Dad and Justin. And you should see them dance - I have never seen two people so happy as they are when they dance together. 

You know how I said you couldn't cut down my moms? You couldn't do that to my dads, either. They are indestructible. They've been through so much and they've come through it stronger and closer than ever. They're one of the best examples of love I can think of. Maybe they're even my favourite example... all I know is, when I see the love they share, I feel safe. I feel happy. Happy for me, that I get dads like that, and happy for them that they have something so special. Those are the two best words to describe being their son and to describe our family forest overall. And whether I'm with my dads in New York, or whether it's Sunday morning breakfast with moms in Toronto, or whether it's Christmas in Pittsburgh, those are my three constants: love, and the safety and joy it inspires. See? Cheese avalanche. _Whoosh._

So... well, that's my moms and my dads. That's a quick visit to the edge of my family forest. These people... my moms, my dads, my grandmas, my aunts, my uncles, all of them... they're what I know about love. I know this as well: Love is what keeps us going. Love means believing in people, keeping them close, never giving up. Love can take a lot of different shapes and forms. Love is what I'll see at the dinner table tonight, when my moms ask me and J.R. what we did at school, while they smile at each other and hold hands. Love is what my dads have together. It's the way they circle each other, the way they look at each other, the way you look at them and see into this world that exists just for them. I asked Dad what Justin means to him and he said, "Justin means everything to me." I asked Jus the same and he said, "Your dad is the love of my life, Gussy. He means more than I could even begin to say." Again, don't call me that. I only let a select few people get away with it. Jus and Nanna Deb, for example. I suppose that's a good example of love, too. There's a lot more I could come up with. After all, there's a whole forest our there to explore.

But if I'm really being honest - and I'm really hoping there's marks for that, Mr. B. - the very best examples, the strongest and highest-reaching trees in the forest, are my parents. My moms and my dads. I imagine their branches sprawling upwards and stretching towards the sun. Their love for each other, their love for me, their love for our family... it's something I believe in. It's something I keep close to me and that I wouldn't dare give up on. It's what keeps me going. It's the love I've grown up with and the kind of love I think I'll go looking for in years to come.

Uh, so that's about that. That's what I know about love. Thank you for listening.


End file.
